Panic! Then Use the Visor

Richard cracked the door of his cabin open, darted his head out and glanced both ways. He spotted the housekeeping laundry cart a few cabins down the hall, just past several of the ship’s passengers who were casually returning to their rooms in beachwear. He waited until they cleared, then bolted down the hall, hugging the bundle of hastily stripped bedding close to his waist. The chilling breeze on his back and ass reminded him that he was still very naked. A housekeeper stepped out of from the cabin nearest the cart as he slam-dunked the incriminating evidence into it. She jumped with a squawk, shocked at his wild behavior.

“Room 75 needs new sheets please!” he grimaced apologetically as he sprinted away.

Once back in his room, he gave himself a minute to let his stress subside. He found his clothes and started putting his shorts on in a mental cloud, telling himself that things were going to be okay. He looked down to figure out why his shorts were not cooperating. “Well... Fuck!” The fly on them were torn, just like his dress pants. He went to his suitcase and jammed the ruined shorts in the bottom while grabbing his backup cargo shorts.

While staring blankly at the floor trying to figure out what to do, he noticed a pair of black cotton panties near the bed. He snatched them off the floor, instantly realizing instantly they were not his wife’s... and they were torn... As if torn clean off of someone by ****...

“Fuuuuuuck!” He dropped to his knees, dropping the cargo shorts and looking for any other evidence under the bed, but found nothing but the TV remote. He jammed the panties in a cargo pocket at sat on the stripped bed to think. “Fuck-fuck-fuck-fuck-fuck-FUCK!” He beat his fist to his forehead. “What the fuck did I do?”

In the few seconds he gave himself to image what might have happened, he quickly realized that as terrifying as the thought that he might have had an affair was, it could still be much worse. He had no idea about the wellbeing of Zena. At least... at least there was no blood spatter... Or blood spatter and a body... Or blood spatter and body parts... Or blood spatter and chewed body parts. If he was out of his mind enough to fuck a stranger and not remember it, who’s to say he wasn’t crazy enough to ****, too?

He looked back at the visor. It was the TV, right? It had to be. What had it done to him? **** for any kind of answer, he picked them up and put them on. He felt the edge of the bezel and clicked the button.

The lenses dimmed with a faint flicker. Words appeared on the edge of his vision, floating in the air.

Searching for H-Terminal Sync...

The message kept blinking but wasn’t changing, so eventually he turned the TV on with the remote.

H-Terminal 75 Detected. Sync Established...

BLOCKING H-TERMINAL 75 SUBLIMINALS

The words hovered over his vision ominously. Subliminals? Is that what Zena was talking about? Subs—as in subliminals?

A logo appeared on the screen. It looked like a wireframe gravity well. It spun in the background as menu items popped into view on the left side. These words did not float in the air or follow his head movements like the visor’s HUD, these were being displayed directly from the “H-Terminal”.

He experimented with the remote, mimicking how Zena had done it, quickly getting the hang of moving a cursor around the screen when he realized it was analogous to using a Wii-mote. He scanned through the terminal’s menu items. Aside from typical television categories, a few things stood out. He entered the most worrying one: “Subliminal Settings”.

Safety Mode: On/Off/Reset

Video Mask Theme: Tuner/Blank/Fireplace

Subliminals Profile: 75A, 75B/Add/Remove/Default

Subliminals Intensity: L/M/H/Custom

Inspect Subliminals

Advanced Calibration Settings

He stared at the options for a moment, then out of an justifiable sense of paranoia, he activate Safety Mode first. As a test, he dared lift the visor away from his eyes. The screen looked a flat, dark grey without them. The menu was not visible, neither was the spinning logo. They all reappeared when he lowered the glasses again.

Next he considered the Video Mask Theme, selecting Fireplace. He instantly heard a cracking sound from the speakers, though the screen had not changed. Despite his growing familiarity with how this system worked, he was still caught off guard when he lifted the glasses again. A healthy, glowing fireplace filled the screen. “I’ll be damned!” This rabbit hole was proving to be an interesting distraction from his earlier panic, but he felt a new unease after finding another unusual menu heading.

AutoRecord USB Media: Souvenir_R75

Remembering something Zena had mumbled during the initial inspection, he looked on the back of the terminal, noticing an ornate black and gold usb stick was indeed attached. Okay... a souvenir for the guests then? Of what exactly? He looked back to the terminal’s front, slowing as he noticed for the first time that there was a telltale black circle of a built-in camera on the top border. That could be just for tracking the remote... right?

He looked at menu and clicked to access the souvenir USB stick. It contained two video files.

He gulped as he read the timestamps on those files. The first was from last night, not long after they had arrived at the cabin. The second was from earlier today, approximately four hours ago... He looked back at the eye of the camera warily as a trickle of sweat ran down his temple.